Quote:
Originally Posted by vincerooney
I agree with your sentiment in a sense but all I know is I paid a lot less when sky owned all the football. sure they dictated the price but I got all EPL football, champions league, fa cup and England games under one subscription.
Now in theory I pay for two.
In a way Ofcom should be investigated for the crime they committed at giving another multi million pound company the opportunity to steal money from us all (I'm sure it was Ofcom who said sky couldn't have all the epl rights anymore?).
"we're doing this to provide choice and value for the tv viewer"
yeah sure you were. nice fat little lunches and bonuses from sky and bt executives for getting two companies onto the football rights gravy train!
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It was the EC that required the Premier League to sell its rights to more than one bidder. It was not Ofcom.
In a way, the sports pay-TV market was artificially skewed in Sky's favour by government regulation. Firstly, BT was not allowed to sell its own payTV service until 2001. Secondly, the cable companies were licensed on a town-by-town basis, not nationally. This kept them distracted by mergers and without the scale and buying power to purchase sports content successfully in the long term.
As a result of this regulation, Sky was able to keep a large number of sports rights for a long time and to use the rights to develop its market share at the expense of its competitors and to secure a 64% market share of the pay TV market. This dominant position is the reason for the must-wholesale obligations that it has placed on it for SS1 and SS2.